Cayan Releases Data Showing EMV Doesn’t Have to Slow Down the Customer Experience

Cayan Releases Data Showing EMV Doesn’t Have to Slow Down the Customer Experience

Boston, MA – May 6, 2016 – The payments industry is now six months into the migration to EMV® for merchants, and the transition has been slow – literally. Half a year in, both merchants and consumers have expressed frustration with chip card transactions, which can take up to 15 seconds or more, according to a number of reports from merchants and media outlets. Cayan announced today that with the ChipIQ™ technology built into its Genius® platform, merchants are already achieving EMV processing times of just 3.66 seconds.

"There is nothing inherently slow about processing a transaction with an EMV chip card. Looking at the last million transactions we processed on our Genius platform, we consistently see EMV transactions at speeds that rival traditional swipe transactions," said Henry Helgeson, CEO and co-founder of Cayan. “We applaud the recent announcements by major card brands to help speed up EMV transactions, but they don’t address the root cause of the issue. Unfortunately, many retailers are experiencing slow processing times because they are the recipients of poor EMV implementation, and it may be difficult for them to solve that prior to the Q4 holiday season. Fortunately, they don’t have to wait; with our Genius platform and ChipIQ technology, retailers can accept EMV transactions in under 4 seconds today."

Cayan examined one million EMV chip and signature transactions processed on its Genius platform, and analyzed two components of the transaction: terminal interaction with the chip and purchase authorization. From a consumer’s perspective, this represents the time between when they insert the chip card into the device to the moment they receive approval and are ready to sign for their purchase. The improvements recently announced by the major card brands only address the chip interaction time and aim to reduce that time to 2 seconds. Cayan’s in-market solution has a median time of 1.60 seconds for the terminal interaction with the chip, which already beats the newly-announced 2-second benchmark. The median time to authorize the purchase is 1.92 seconds, with an average time of 2.56 seconds. The resulting median time for chip and signature transaction processed on the Genius platform is just 3.66 seconds – with an average time of just over 4 seconds.

From the outset, Cayan has focused on optimizing the user experience and has designed its payment technology to be able to react swiftly to changes in the payment landscape. Cayan developed its own Level 2 kernel which gave them the flexibility to re-engineer the EMV authorization process through a proprietary technology Cayan calls ChipIQ.

"When we began our EMV development, it was important to tap into the inherent understanding and experience of our UK engineering team," said Marc Castrechini, VP of Product Management, Cayan. "Not only did they have knowledge of EMV from a development standpoint, but they also understood the nuances of the checkout experience as everyday consumers and users of chip cards. Our ChipIQ™ technology was built into the Genius platform from the beginning. It works with every card brand and requires no software upgrades or additional testing for the merchant. We have thousands of merchants already using our platform and seeing these results."

And those merchants are noticing. "We had heard that chip card processing at other retailers was painfully slow," said Marc Lillie of Goody Hardware and Paint, member of one of the world’s largest retailer-owned co-ops. "For us, [chip card processing with Cayan’s Genius platform] is a fraction of the time of our old swipe system. Faster checkouts mean more dollars faster. We like that and so do our customers. It adds to our perceived value as a top retailer."

About Cayan

Cayan®, The Payment Possibilities Company®, is the leading provider of payment technologies that give businesses a competitive advantage. From simple and reliable payment processing, to a fully-integrated, multi-channel Customer Engagement Platform® solution, Cayan is continuously developing new ways for businesses to unlock the power of payments. Headquartered in Boston, the company has multiple offices in the United States and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Cayan is one of the world's fastest growing payment companies. For more information, visit www.cayan.com.

EMV is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries, and is an unregistered trademark in other countries, owned by EMVCo